


The most remarkable thing about coming home to you

by ireallydidthistomyself



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Claire Novak's Parents, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Jack Kline's Parents, Castiel is Claire Novak's Parent, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Dean Winchester is Claire Novak's Parent, Dean Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Discussions of past child abuse, Jack Kline and Claire Novak are Siblings, M/M, every character besides dean and cas are just mentioned, just sort of small domestic scene, spoilers for the 1961 film west side story i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28974333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ireallydidthistomyself/pseuds/ireallydidthistomyself
Summary: When he opened the door, he saw Cas’s promise of staying up had also been broken. The television was still on, tuned to TCM, some old movie playing, music swelling through the room. The tv was angled towards the couch, on which Cas was sleeping, sitting upright, his head leaning back in a way that Dean assumed would hurt like a bitch in the morning. Claire was sleeping at his feet, curled up on the floor. Glancing at the two queens, Dean saw Jack curled up on top of one, head at the end of it as if he had fallen asleep still watching the television. He smiled, fond and small. It looked almost like a picture of Gethsemane, the type he remembered Sammy pouring over as a little boy. This, to him, felt far holier.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 100





	The most remarkable thing about coming home to you

**Author's Note:**

> title from "going to georgia" by the mountain goats. big lose that john darnielle won't play it at concerts anymore because of gun violence.  
> set in the world of the sort of bonkers college au @casgirl and i came up with but like they're not in college anymore they're grown so i didn't feel a need to tag it as that.

He tried to turn the knob as quietly as possible, keeping the parking lot lights from flooding into the tiny motel room. It was late, nearing one a.m., and he had promised he would be back earlier. But it had taken forever to even get out the door and once he did traffic was a major bitch and he felt a twinge of guilt as he surveyed the darkened room. The motel clerk had assumed something illicit when he had lumbered in just a few minutes ago and asked for the key Cas had said would be waiting at the desk. With a clear quirk of the eyebrow and a purse of the lips, Dean knew the bored, pimply young woman was assuming either this was the other family or he was just coming from them. He’d taken his key with a shit eating grin and sauntered off.

When he opened the door, he saw Cas’s promise of staying up had also been broken. The television was still on, tuned to TCM, some old movie playing, music swelling through the room. The tv was angled towards the couch, on which Cas was sleeping, sitting upright, his head leaning back in a way that Dean assumed would hurt like a bitch in the morning. Claire was sleeping at his feet, curled up on the floor. Glancing at the two queens, Dean saw Jack curled up on top of one, head at the end of it as if he had fallen asleep still watching the television. He smiled, fond and small. It looked almost like a picture of Gethsemane, the type he remembered Sammy pouring over as a little boy. This, to him, felt far holier.

He went over to where Jack was sleeping on the bed and carefully put his arms under his shoulders and dragged him around on the bed, letting his head rest on the pillow. Jack was already in his pajamas, fortunately, and so Dean lifted up the duvet, and slid his body under it, tucking him in. He looked down at the small boy, his face peaceful in the darkness, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. A small part of his heart quietly cried out “why can’t he always be like this?” Happy and small and completely safe, nothing to disturb him but the sirens of an ambulance speeding down the nearby freeway, this was how Dean wished his son could be forever. He patted down the bed around his son and looked down at his hands when he was done. _This is what they’re for,_ he thought of his own hands, _this is the best sort of thing you’ve done with them._

He went over to Claire next and bent down. She was still dressed in her jeans and shirt, and he decided to let her keep those on, to avoid the inevitable fight in the morning over him removing it in her sleep, but he did go to the trouble of pulling off her combat boots and socks, gently so as not to wake her. Then he put one arm under her neck and the other behind her knees and hauled her up against his chest. She was sixteen, older and heavier than six year old Jack, but at 5’5” she was ultimately nothing in Dean’s arms. He began to carry her towards the bed and lay her down beside her brother when he heard a stirring from the couch.

“Dean…” Cas’s voice quietly called and he turned his head.

“Shit, I’m sorry-“ he began, but Cas quickly shook his head.

“No, no we were supposed to stay up. We tuned in to the movie, Jack fell asleep- and then I guess we dropped like flies,” Cas muttered sleepily, eyes clearly beginning to adjust to the dark. “What time is it?”

“Just about one,” Dean replied, and tucked Claire in, quickly moving back over towards where Cas sat on the sofa, wanting to keep their conversation from waking the two children. “Traffic was shit-”

“We’re not that far from home,” Cas said softly. Dean looked away. It was true, the motel was on the edges of town, and their apartment, the one currently occupied by his sleeping father, was only a twenty minute drive at most. There had been bad traffic, but nothing bad enough to warrant the time he got in.

“Look, we were talking real late, he didn’t get to bed until after midnight, and I didn’t know exactly how to get out of it,” Dean admitted. He could make out Cas rolling his eyes, even in the dark.

“Couldn’t you have just told him that you had to go see your kids?” Cas asked curtly and Dean felt himself stiffen.

“Yeah, I guess you guys could also just come home and stop being so goddamn weird about this,” Dean shot back.

“My children aren’t staying under the same roof as that man,” Cas said, harsh and unrelenting. “He’s your father and you love him and want to help him through a rough patch, that’s all fine and good, I respect that. Family is important to you. But I’ve told you time and again, I don’t want them near him anymore.”

“I think you’re being pretty fucking stubborn-”

“Let’s not fight please,” Cas said, cutting him off. “It’s a waste of a night.”

“Alright,” Dean replied, and crouched in front of the television. The film was in color, he noted, but the sort of bright primaries of old movies, and the clearly fake sets making it seem slightly claustrophobic. As a tragic looking girl in white sang to the pretty faced boy who was holding her, he looked back at Cas. “What’s the movie?”

“West Side Story,” Cas replied and Dean smiled. He remembered that Cas loved that movie, had talked to him about it avidly from when they had first met. _It’s sort of perfect_ , he had told him, as he hung up the poster of it, _because I know how it’s going to end every time but whenever I start it I think, “well this must be the one time they make it out” and up until the last moment I still have hope._ Dean had been twenty two then, just helping Sammy move into his freshman dorm, and had privately wondered what a strange fucking bird he had gotten for his roommate.

It had been seven years since then. He didn’t think more than two weeks had gone by that he hadn’t seen Cas since. Sam had gone to college in the town where he worked so excuses to see him had been pretty easy right away as Cas quickly wrapped his way around his heart. It was seven years since he’d kissed him a few months later, in the front seat of his car, driving him back to his dorm late at night (all much to Sam’s chagrin of course). About six years, Dean thought, since Cas had shown up at his doorstep, barely nineteen, in tears, Jack, bloody and just a few hours old, nestled in his arms and an awful story about his older brother and his friend Kelly on his lips. It was six years since Cas had dropped out and moved in with him and suddenly both their lives had seemed to swerve off the road irreparably and Dean was certain, in retrospect, that it was the best decision they had ever made. And it had been five years since Dean had come home from work to find eleven year old Claire sitting on his recliner, drinking tomato soup out of his coffee mug, and had Cas explain that yes she had tried to mug him in the supermarket parking lot earlier in the day but she had no one living to care for her and nowhere to go. The situation becoming permanent had occurred over the following months. Seven strange long years, he thought, and when he saw Cas bathed in the tv light, rapt attention on the singing teenagers, he felt the same overwhelming wonder that he had for the strange blue eyed eighteen year old he had met in that dorm room. They could never stay mad at each other long, not really, though they fought fiercely at times and were two equally stubborn bastards. The ever familiar love just always took them over far too quickly afterwards.

“What’d you guys order for dinner?” Dean asked but Cas shook his head.

“Shh, wait until the end of the song, please,” Cas asked him and he smiled fondly and waited for the last bit of the crooning to come to its climactic conclusion. The two lovers collapsed into one another’s arms and he expected some early 60s approved heavy petting was about to take place. He took the opportunity to head over to Cas on the sofa and press a soft kiss to his lips. He felt Cas smile into him and then wrap his own hand around the back of his head and pull Dean in, deepening the kiss. Dean let himself fall onto the couch beside Cas, his head resting on his shoulder. Cas kept his hand on him, caressing the back of Dean’s neck. “You smell like grease.”

“Didn’t get a chance to take a shower since I got back from the shop,” Dean admitted. “Worked late, had to put up dinner for my old man, then he got me wrapped up in beer and conversation as I said, then hopped in the car and came all the way here. I can hop in the shower now, if you want.”

“No,” Cas said firmly. “I don’t mind. It’s not a bad smell, not to me, never has been. It reminds me you’re home.”

“You’re such a little sap,” Dean fondly told him and Cas gave him a small, shy smile. It was moments like that he still saw the kid in him, the sweet kid who looked at him with so much more adoration than he’d ever deserved.

“I can’t help it,” Cas murmured. “And I miss you. It makes me sappy.”

Dean kissed him again for that, half out of guilt and half out of tenderness.

“I’m here now,” he affirmed. Cas broke away from him.

“Yeah, you’ll be gone for the shop before 8 and then I won’t see you until maybe this time tomorrow night,” Cas bitterly remarked.

“I thought you said we weren’t fighting,” Dean replied. Cas shook his head and rested it under Dean’s chin, slouching down slightly.

“We aren’t, I’m sorry,” Cas said, backing down. “And we ordered pizza- for dinner. You wanted to know.”

“Ah.”

“We have some left if you’re hungry.”

“No thanks,” Dean told him. “And I bet you let them order some disgusting topping.”

“Mushrooms are pretty normal, Dean, it’s not divisive like pineapple,” Cas responded, a fondness tinging his exasperated tone.

“No way, they’re like- like vegetables pretending to be meat, they’re gross,” Dean ranted and Cas laughed, quiet and low, holding himself back, Dean assumed, so as to not wake up the two children. “The fact that I’m raising two kids who will willingly order it on a friggin pizza…”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better I insisted they pick a vegetable,” Cas said. “They should have a balanced diet.”

“Bullshit, I never worried about giving Sammy and me a balanced diet,” Dean said, shrugging. He knew that sort of talk set Cas off a little and instantly regretted it.

“Well,” Cas got out, as if preparing to launch into some long speech, but instead petered off. “It’s breakfast tomorrow, sorry to say.”

“No way,” Dean shot at him. “Not in a million years.”

“We don’t have anything else,” Cas explained but Dean shook his head.

“I’ll cook something, I’ll take care of it, don’t worry,” Dean told him. “I’ll get up to buy anything we need.”

“You don’t have to do that, you’ll barely get any sleep-” Cas began. Dean grinned.

“Hey, I said I’m taking care of it so I’m taking care of it, alright?” He told him.

“Alright,” Cas replied, and Dean felt Cas sink back into him, contentment coloring his gestures. Dean loved this, being able to be of use to them. Even when he was fucking them over, as he had been since his dad had showed up washed up and out of work and needing a place to crash a month ago, he could still do things like this. Just the anticipation of Jack’s exuberant face and Claire’s more muted delight when served a plate of flapjacks was enough to fill him up with pride and satisfaction.

Dean turned his head back to the television, the scantily clad lovers waking in each other's arms. He raised an eyebrow, looking at Cas on his chest, who was watching with a familiar look of sentimentality.

“You were gonna let Jack watch this movie?” He asked. He felt Cas’s laughter against his own chest.

“I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake up to this point,” Cas admitted. “He conked out before they even kissed. Claire I thought would make it but she’s sixteen, she can handle it.”

“Glad she didn’t make it, I’ll admit,” Dean grunted. “Not into having that conversation tonight.”

“Neither is she,” Cas reasoned.

“No, probably, not,” Dean replied. Suddenly, a harsh anxiety overtook him. “You know if she has someone, like a boy or something? I mean, you’d tell me if you knew right?”

“I think Claire would be more apt to tell you than me,” Cas said. “But I don’t think boys are gonna be a thing you’ll have to worry about,” Cas said. Dean furrowed his brow.

“Oh?” He asked and then his eyes widened. “Ohhhhhhhh…really?”

“Are you surprised?” Cas questioned and Dean shrugged.

“I guess not, were you?”

“No,” Cas replied. “I sort of guessed. I didn’t tell her that though, you know, I think it would’ve just gotten her angry.”

“Is she giving you trouble lately?” Dean asked. Cas sighed.

“Well, she misses you. I don’t know, like I said, I doubt I’d have been the first to know if you were still here,” Cas told him. And it was true, though Cas had been the one to bring Claire into the family, Dean had been who she’d always latched onto. He’d been the one she tentatively began to call “dad” pretty early on, while Cas was still just Cas to her. It had taken her ages to see Cas as more than some weird older brother figure and instead a parent in his own right. He supposed it was partly the age difference, Cas having only nine years on her, which felt less than Dean’s own thirteen. Newly twenty meant far less to a precocious eleven year old than twenty four. But the other part, he had to admit, was probably due to her identification with him. They were so painfully alike and Dean knew that in his quieter moments he still saw a child in Cas. Not in any real way, he was smart, mature, and an incredible and capable father to Jack and Claire. But in little ways, like how Dean always put his arm out in front of him when a car drove in front of them while they were crossing the street. It was instinctual and baseless, but he suspected Claire picked up on it and absorbed it into her own psyche.

It was most apparent everytime John came by. That first time, back when Jack was two and Claire was thirteen, Claire had been like a wary little guard dog, yapping at his heels and always keeping herself between him and Cas and Jack. The second time, a year later, she had seemed more relaxed as the first visit had gone mostly without incident. Only it had been that second visit when the incident with Jack had occurred, and he knew Claire blamed herself for letting her guard down, despite the number of talking tos Dean had given her, emphasizing how much it wasn’t her fault.

(The incident itself was in constant debate as only John and Jack had been in the room when it had happened. However, when Cas had reentered Jack was crying and had a black and blue on his head from hitting it on the leg of the end table. If he had been shoved or bashed or swatted or just tripped, was unclear. Dean had told his dad to get the fuck out of his apartment afterwards, when Cas had called him home from work to deal with it. They hadn’t seen each other almost at all for the three years since, until he had shown up a month ago broke with nowhere to go, brushing away past mistakes, and insisting he was sober.)

Claire was openly hostile during the third visit, never letting John even alone in a room with Jack or Cas. He had laughed to Dean about his girl being a chip off the old block but none of them had found it particularly funny. It hadn’t really mattered because by the end of the day after he had showed up, Cas had moved the three of them out to the motel and informed Dean they were staying there until John found a place of his own.

It was an arrangement that seemed to work great for John and terribly for absolutely everybody else. Dean spent his days at work and creeping around his place feeling like a terrified kid all over again, waiting for the inevitable strike to fly and knowing that though he was older and tougher now and could probably beat his old man to an inch of his life if he wanted to, he’d still just take it. He’d take it out of habit and he’d take it out of love.

He did love his father, that was the terrible truth of it all that he only admitted to Cas in their tenderest and most secret moments. It would all be so easy if the only thing he felt towards John was fear or obligation but he couldn’t help the sweet tasting overwhelming love he felt as well. The love didn’t override the love he felt for Cas and the kids. And it certainly didn’t stop the terrible hatred he felt towards his father when he saw the way Cas’s face screwed up with fear when John had pulled into their driveway, or how Claire always gave Dean the cold shoulder at the breakfast table, still furious that he’d “chosen” him over them, or how Jack clung to his pant leg whenever he went off to work in the morning, a too deep sadness in the little boy’s blue eyes. No, if anything the love he felt for his father only served as a paralytic. He was frozen in the middle of a crossroads, like some fucked up version of the trolley problem, failing his family and himself all at once.

“It’s not gonna be much longer, baby,” Dean said, trying to keep his voice steady and free of guilt. Cas, of course, could see through him right away.

“I’m worried about you,” he admitted and Dean turned towards him with surprise. All of the conversations they’d had about the situation had been in relation to Claire and Jack, how Cas worried about his children around John. They’d not talked about this in relation to Dean, not for years. They’d spoken about it a lot when he had started going to AA after Jack was born. But once Dean had stopped going and the past began to fully seem the past, it had drifted to the back of their minds. Cas knew everything, half from serious, reasonable late night conversations and half from desperate tear filled late night confessions into the crook of his bare shoulder. But because he knew that, he also knew Dean would rather die than talk about it. He wasn’t that weak little kid, he would say harshly, if it was ever brought up. It wasn’t worth going over when it was basically ancient history and he was fine, totally fine. It was weakness, he thought, and too much weakness to even show to the one person he could allow himself to feel weak around.

“You don’t got anything to worry about,” Dean brushed off but Cas’s grip on the back of his neck tightened ever so slightly.

“I don’t like the idea of you home alone with him all day. I think you’re tearing yourself apart.”

Dean snorted.

“I can take care of myself just fine, Cas. I know how to handle him,” Dean replied.

“That’s not true you just know how to take care of others,” Cas said. “You know how to manage him,” who the him was seemed obvious and unspoken but Dean responded to it with a grunt nonetheless, “and you know how to deflect and take the brunt off of others and keep everyone calm and happy but you don’t know how to take care of yourself. And besides, even if you did, that’s not all on you anymore. Now you have me.”

“It’s my job to keep you safe,” Dean told him firmly and Cas sighed. “And I’m doing that, nothing else matters.

“That’s bullshit,” Cas responded. “That’s such bullshit.”

“Look, what do you want me to do?” Dean asked him angrily. Cas removed his hand then, his shoulders sagging and his body tensing, as if he was gearing up for a fight.

“I’m not angry at you,” Cas said, quiet and slightly sulky in such a way that undermined his point. “I just want you to be alright. For their sake, and yes, selfishly for my own, I want you to be here, but mostly I just want you to not be with him. Because it’s killing you, I know it is, and I wish you would admit that. You don’t deserve the shit he puts on you, you never did.”

“I’m far too tired for this sort of talk,” Dean said, quick and gruff and unrelenting. “Shit, Cas, I thought I came by so we could have a nice evening.”

“Well, you got here so late it’s not exactly evening anyway,” was Cas’s bitchy response. Then he seemed to relax and sink into remorse. “I’m sorry Dean. I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t do this.”

“Look, this isn’t a red letter day for either of us,” Dean replied. Cas moved away from him on the couch ever so slightly, his attention turning back to the television. Dean followed him with his eyes. He loved to watch Cas watch things, always had since the beginning of their relationship. Half of their early dates had been showing Cas all his favorite movies, the ones he basically knew by heart, and turning his attention, in the darkness of his bedroom, to Cas’s face, noting the moments that made him laugh in delight or sigh in longing. There was some quiet, perfect delight of getting home late after work and finding Cas curled up on the sofa with Jack and Claire, the three of them laughing along to some dumb tv show. Dean would always savor the moments before they noticed him in the alcove, like peering into a Norman Rockwell painting.

Cas’s face was currently wrapped in distress watching the old man stare at the bright faced young lover, ranting about the new life he would build in the country. When the old man slapped him across the face and yelled “wake up!”, Cas flinched. Dean reached across the soft for his hand.

“Do I have to wake up too?” Cas said quietly. “I’ve wondered that a lot lately, if this whole perfect life we’ve been having, or the dream of it anyway, if that’s all it is, if we’re fooling ourselves.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Dean whispered gently. Cas smiled sadly.

“No, I know it’s not. It’s the only real thing I’ve ever had. But I don’t know if it’ll last, that’s what worries me,” Cas admitted. “I feel like Tony and then I feel like you’re him too. Like the only way anyone will ever get through to you is with violence. Like you’ll need something really awful to happen before you see sense in this situation. And it can’t even be something awful to you, because you just won’t care. Enough awful has happened to you anyway. It’ll have to be to them.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Dean told him, harsh and quick and firm. “I would never- I promised you I’d never let him go near them again.” Cas sighed.

“You don’t get what I’m trying to say,” Cas said quietly.

“Then I explain it to me,” Dean implored him. Cas shook his head.

“That’s the point, I can’t,” he said. “You have to figure it out on your own.” He turned back to the screen again, gunshots punctuating the quiet of the motel room. Dean thought he noticed Cas’s eyes grow watery watching Maria cradle the dying Tony, the red of her dress popping like a blood stain against the grey and brown cityscape.

“You alright?” Dean asked him, a stupid question, he had to admit. Cas wiped at his eye with the back of his hand, quick and brusk.

“I don’t know why I always think it’s gonna turn out different,” he whispered. “I’ve seen it a million times and it’s like...I don’t know. It makes me feel like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Dean told him gently. “You know, that’s one of the first things you ever told me?”

“I remember,” Cas said fondly. “God, we were such kids.”

“You were a kid.”

“You were one too.”

Dean responded with nothing but a small huff. Cas turned to him, a fondness in his eyes that always took Dean by surprise. Dean felt an intense wave of love and exhaustion overtake him and, drawn there like a magnet, let his head come to rest in Cas’s lap. Cas made a small hum of contentment, and put his fingers in Dean’s hair, stroking it slowly and carefully, as if he was afraid he might dissolve at his touch.

“You’re alright now,” Cas told him quietly. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m fine,” Dean said but the way he had curled into him clearly proved otherwise. Cas kept running his fingers through his hair as if he hadn’t heard him. Dean tried to let himself relax, to sink into Cas’s body and ease himself of tension, but some of it remained in his shoulders and clenched fists and curled toes. He was always ready, ready for the monster under the bed to bash down the motel door and require him to jump to his feet.

That’s what Cas never understood, he thought, in his gentleness and softness, and his constant imploring for Dean to let go and be selfish and let himself be cared for, in the ever present innocence and forgiveness of Cas’s love. He didn’t know that Dean spent every day fighting a war and to drop his guard was to allow the enemy an opening. He’d tried to tell that to Cas once, drunk out of his mind before he’d cleaned himself up. _Who’s the enemy?_ Cas had asked him and Dean had shaken his head and extended his arms. _Everywhere,_ he’d replied, slurring his words, _everywhere in here,_ he’d pointed to his heart _, and in here_ , and he’d pointed at Cas. _But mostly in here_ , he said and pointed back at himself. Cas had held him so tight that night and not said a word against him when he had woken up the next morning hung over and miserable.

“You need to make a decision,” Cas said, Dean twisted his neck ever so slightly to look up at him. “Because it can’t go on like this, it really can’t.”

“Cas-”

“Let me speak please,” Cas firmly cut him off. “It’s not good for them and it’s worse for you and it’s probably not even good for your father either. I don’t care if it is or it isn’t for him but I can’t imagine that it actually is. So you can give him money if you need to or try to find him a job or a place to stay but he has to go.”

Dean was quiet for a long moment, his mind felt like a thousand flood walls were suddenly breaking and he wanted to scream, rail at Cas, break something, storm out, anything that would be easy. But the quiet and the night and the love of the other man were far too intense and they seemed to blanket him and hold him in place. Eventually, he found his voice.

“He’s my father” he whispered, all the anguish and love apparent in that last little word.

“I know. But, that doesn’t change anything. You know what you have to do and I know that you’re brave enough to do it. You’re a good man and a good father and I know you’ll do what’s right.” Cas spoke with a steadiness in his convictions and a firmness in his eyes that always made him look halfway saintly to Dean. Dean didn’t know how someone like that could ever want to hold him, he certainly didn’t think he deserved it.

“I can’t do it, Cas. I’m not strong enough,” he said, the words coming out choked and quiet. “I know you need me to be but I really don’t think I can.”

“Yes you can,” Cas told him, voice low and tender and he lowered his head to press a kiss into Dean’s hair. “And I’ll be right here when you’re done. I’ll be here no matter what.”

Dean stared into the darkness, observing yet again the sleeping Jack and Claire. She had reached over, instinctively in her sleep, and wrapped her arm around her little brother, pulling him to her like a teddy bear. The image called up Sam and himself so sharply in his brain it was uncanny. If he squinted it could’ve been the two of them, holed up in some motel room in a town they were passing through with his dad looking for work. He remembered all the promises he made himself around them, how he was never going to make half of the same mistakes his father had, how he would never want them to know fear like that. A voice in his head, soft and insistent (and while he was imagining it as Cas’s he knew it came from within Dean himself), whispered “if they don’t deserve it, why did you?” And the easy answer was because he was bad and stupid, too slow, careless, and selfish, but he knew the falseness in all of that. He turned up towards Cas and noticed he too was staring at their children, fondness and longing in his eyes.

“Alright,” Dean said.

“Alright?” Cas asked, looking back down at him.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” Dean replied and Cas leaned down and brushed a kiss to his lips. Dean savored it, wanting to hold him there forever, stuck in the sweet forgiveness of the man he loved. Eventually he broke away. Cas smiled at him.

“I love you,” Cas said, earnest and ever faithful and sure of himself. Dean reached his hand up to rest on Cas’s stubbly chin, a light tap to remind himself that they’re both real.

“I know,” he told him and Cas laughed and kissed him again for his trouble.

Dean settled back into his lap. On the television the movie was fading away, and Dean could feel sleep coming over his eyes. He felt Cas relax into the couch, though his hand remained in Dean’s hair, untangling it with a peaceful rhythm. He let himself give into exhaustion then, allowing his eyes to fully close and his body to drift off to sleep.

In the morning he would have to wake early, extricate himself from Cas’s lap where he had fallen asleep, and drive to the nearest convenience store for groceries. In the morning he would make a mediocre attempt at flapjacks on the miniscule motel stove. In the morning they’d sit around the table and eat and Jack would sit on his lap and get syrup all over his clothes while Claire lazily defended why she failed her Chem test. In the morning Cas would give him one good long kiss pressed up against his car, away from their children’s prying eyes, before he had to drive off and he would feel like a fucking superhero. In the morning, he would pull up to their building and walk up the ever cramped staircase to their apartment and enter into one of the hardest and most frightening conversations of his life. By the end of the next day he would feel braver and lighter and younger than he had in years as he helped his family move their stuff back in. That night he would sleep better than he had in years.

But none of that had happened yet. And instead he was sleeping in Cas’s lap, washed in the light of the television, their children just a few feet away, and carefully watched over by his lover’s eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah you know. it's all about breaking the fucking cycles.  
> i’m aware there’s no logical universe where they’d get custody of these children but like it’s destiel fanfic man


End file.
